Garrison
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: Life can be lonely for an angel who walks the Earth, even when he has his brothers and sisters to walk beside him. Castiel, one-shot.


Garrison

I looked down at the vast, arid plain. The city of Damascus lay sprawling beneath me, its domed-roof mosques standing above the surrounding sand-coloured houses, their minarets reaching towards the sky as if striving to touch Heaven itself. Voices were raised from those heights, Imams calling the faithful to prayer, the sound of belief and conviction ringing throughout the city, inviting others to join them in worship of Allah.

My first thought was that perhaps the arch-angels _do_ have a sense of humour, after all.

I was not alone above that ancient, beautiful gem of a city. The others were with me, each one a glowing presence of light energy, each of them as invisible to the humans below as I myself was. Not even the Imams, with their lofty views, could see us hovering there. _Malaikah_, they would have called us, had they seen us, and they would have greeted us as messengers of their God. They would not have been wrong; not entirely. But we were messengers no longer. Now, we bore no messages. We simply watched.

Balthazar was beside me, my closest friend in Heaven. Uriel was nearby too, his silver eyes flickering over the proud city as if looking for wickedness to smite, looking for an excuse to raze the settlement to ash. Hester and Rachel hovered close to him, their eyes scanning the sky, the horizon, the ground below, searching for answers I knew would not come. Inias, always the quietest of us, was a short distance away, listening to the human call to prayer. Thirty we were in number, some of the angels more familiar to me than others. But from now on we would be strangers no longer. From now on, my brothers and sisters were the only family I would see.

I saw a light on the plain below me, and brought it to the attention of the others. We descended to the Earth, our formless feet touching the bare ground, and found our new leader, Anna, waiting for us. She alone did not look confused by this sudden expulsion of our newfound garrison. She alone looked quietly confident, and we gathered around her, moths to her flame.

"What is happening, Anna?" I asked, because the others had nudged me forward; their spokesperson, apparently.

"We have new orders," she said. Her silver eyes looked over us, taking in the expressions on our faces, weighing each of us against some unseen feather. "We are to be stationed on the Earth, to watch it."

"To what end?" Uriel spoke up.

"I have not been given that information," Anna replied calmly. "We will observe all that happens here. We will walk amongst the humans, but they will not be aware of us. We will not take vessels unless instructed to by the arch-angels. Every hundred years, a seraph will come to me, to hear our reports."

"If you have not been told the purpose of our mission here, how will we know what to look for, what to observe?" I asked. The arch-angels' orders made little sense to me.

"We are to observe everything," she said, matter-of-factly. If the strangeness of these orders concerned her, she did not show it. Then again, she had always been the strongest angel I'd known. She was unflappable. Nothing could shake her. I admired her for that. I very much wanted to be like her, though I tried not to emulate her _too_ much. She would have thought me foolish, had she known my thoughts.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Balthazar, standing once more by my side. I could feel the concern, the confusion, radiating from his entire body. I hoped he could not feel it from me.

"Anywhere the wind takes you," replied Anna. "Walk as you will, alone or in pairs or groups, and watch humanity grow. On the island of Albion, far to the west of here, is a circle of standing stones. We will meet there every ten years, so that you can tell me all that you've seen. Until then... pleasant journeys to you all."

In the blink of an eye she was gone, the sound of her feathery wings flapping quietly as she departed. I looked around at the others, saw the same lack of understanding on their faces as was surely on mine. At first they looked to me, hoping for a word of explanation, a piece of advice, some idea about why this was happening... but I could offer them nothing.

They began to drift away. Inias was first. Though he was quiet, he did not lack bravery. He went east, his head cocked as if he could hear something that interested him on the breeze. Uriel was the next to go. He set his sights on nearby Damascus, muttered something about 'seeing the sin for himself,' and was gone. One by one my brothers and sisters left that arid plain. Balthazar and Rachel chose to travel together for a while; south, they went, in the direction of the great winding river known as the Nile. Finally I was alone, save for one other angel. He approached me nervously, with the same caution I might approach an arch-angel.

"Castiel," he said, "would you mind if I walked with you for a while?"

"No, I don't mind," I replied. The company would be reassuring. I looked more closely at the angel's face. I had seen him around Heaven before, though I hadn't spoken to him until our garrison had been formed. "It's Samandriel, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Thank you for letting me come with you. How long do you think our mission here will last?"

"I don't know. Not too long, I hope." As much as I enjoyed watching the humans, I missed Heaven already. The light was so different down here, so bright and harsh, it stung my eyes. To cover up my discomfort, and my lack of insight, I turned to Samandriel. "Where would you like to observe first?"

He shrugged his silvery-light shoulders. "You pick."

"Alright. But then it's your turn to choose where we watch. Come this way."

I turned away from Damascus, and led my new friend to the west.

o - o - o - o - o

For those first ten years, Samandriel and I walked the streets of Greece, because that seemed to be the most interesting place to watch. Certainly, the Greeks were a successful people; their civilisation was famed for its openness, for its education, and its wealth. From time to time we caught glimpses of the Greek gods; Zeus, the patriarch of the pantheon, rarely deigned to walk amongst the mortals as Samandriel and I did, but we did see some of the others. Hermes, who was known to the Romans as Mercury, zipped around on his errands, carrying messages from the gods to their servants, and to other gods as well. Athena, goddess of wisdom, ruled from her seat of power within the Parthenon in Athens, but we sensed that she did not approve of our presence, so we avoided her city as much as we could.

It was ten years before we saw our brothers and sisters again. Ten years before we found out where they had been, what they had observed. Balthazar and Rachel had stayed in Egypt, to watch that seemingly timeless empire. Uriel had stayed in Damascus, declaring it a place of sin and vice that should rightfully be wiped from the Earth. We listened to his tales, but paid little heed to the sentiment behind them; Uriel saw unworthy sinners everywhere.

Inias, meanwhile, had travelled to China, to witness the birth of what would later be called The Hundred Schools of Thought. Our quiet brother was full of tales of the exciting things he'd witnessed in the far East. It made me want to travel there myself, one day. Hester, on the other hand, had gone in the opposite direction, far to the west and over the great ocean to a different continent, where she had watched tribes of people wander around, hunting large animals and trading with each other, sometimes even warring with each other. The concept of war was nothing new to us; we were angels, after all. Though man has called us many things—messengers, guardians, servants, sons of God—we are, first and foremost, soldiers.

Anna listened to our reports, carefully taking note of everything we said, so that in another ninety years she could tell it to the seraphs. When our meeting was finally adjourned, we said our goodbyes and set out again. As promised, it was Samandriel's turn to pick our place to watch, and he immediately offered his suggestion.

"There seem to be interesting goings on in Rome. I think I'd like to go there, and compare it to Greece."

"I agree," I told him, though I had no strong feelings about it one way or the other. The Romans were a war-like people, and I'd come to appreciate the creativity of Greece. Still, I _had_ promised. But first, there was something I needed to know. "Will you wait for me in Gaul?" I asked him. "There's something I wish to speak to Anna about."

"Of course, Castiel," he replied. With one great flap of his silvery feathered wings, he was gone.

"What is it, Castiel?" Anna asked me. The light of her body illuminated the entire stone circle, casting long shadows out in every direction. I remember thinking, then, that she was one of the most beautiful angels I had ever seen. Bright, serene, calm even under the pressure of war and the uneasiness of being stationed here on Earth... I would have followed her anywhere, because I knew she had the strength to see us all through.

"Are we being punished?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said immediately. "Why would you even think that?"

"We have been effectively exiled from Heaven, told not to return unless we are called upon, forbidden from taking vessels to interact with the humans. We are in a place of limbo. A place where we can look, and listen, but never touch. Doesn't that seem like punishment, to you?"

"They are our orders, Castiel," she said firmly, confident in the arch-angels. "We are needed to watch the Earth. I don't know why, but this is no punishment. Trust me."

"I do," I said, and wished I hadn't been so quick to say it.

She merely smiled. "I'll see you in another ten years."

When she left the hillside, the light of her body going with her, everything seemed a little darker. When we had all been together, all thirty of us, it had almost been like Heaven again. Now, there was no light but my own to fend off the darkness of the night. Above me, the stars twinkled, and I felt a moment of envy towards them. They shared the sky as angels shared Heaven. For as long as each one shone, they would never be alone. Nobody could ever send them away.

Then, I felt foolish for thinking that way. Stars were stars. They were suns burning brightly, thousands and millions of lightyears away from each other. They could not get lonely for they had no feelings. For that matter, neither did angels. I put my melancholy musings down to continued lack of clarity regarding our orders, and promptly tried to forget how much I missed Heaven. Samandriel was waiting for me. Proof that I wasn't truly alone.

o - o - o - o - o

Samandriel and I found Rome to be very much like Heaven; the order, the structure of how things were run in the chain of command... there was a familiarity about it. But still, I preferred the freedom the Greeks enjoyed. Bacchus, the Roman god of alcoholic hedonism, invited both of us to one of his drinking festivals. We had to decline, because without vessels, we had no way of drinking. Samandriel was more disappointed about that than I, I think.

After Rome, and our second meeting at the stone circle of Albion, Samandriel and I decided to part ways for a time. He wanted to travel across the ocean, to witness the tribes Hester had spoken of, and I wanted to travel east, to see China. I tried to convince Balthazar to come with me, but he'd enjoyed our tales of Rome... specifically, Bacchus... so much that he wanted to go and see the revelry for himself. So, alone, I set off to the east.

Centuries passed. Kingdoms and empires rose and fell. Some even endured. Some lingered beyond their zenith, sinking slowly beneath the weight of their own corruption, victims of their own success. Those who reached too far struggled to keep hold of outlying territories, and lost them due to civil war or foreign invasion. Egypt was the first to splutter, unable to fend off the influx of Greek immigrants. Cultures began to merge, ideas were shared, and everything was watered down.

I spent some considerable time in China, wandering around the towns and the villages, listening to what the philosophers said. I heard a lot of things that made sense, and some that didn't. I watched a man named Sun Tzu write scrolls of wisdom, which people later collected and made into a book. That was interesting. And, over the course of several decades, I witnessed the birth of important figures; Siddartha Gautama and Mahavira, in India; Confucius, in China; Socrates and Aristotle, in Greece; Julius Caesar, in Rome.

The world started to get bigger. With the unification of China, and its adoption of Confucianism as the official state religion, the Silk Road was opened, allowing for trade with the West. Not content with all that they already held, the Romans turned their attention to Egypt and to Greece, and set about pillaging their neighbours. They seemed set to conquer the world, until they reached too far, and in trying to grasp the lands of Germanic tribes, had their hands bitten and were forced to retreat. How it galled them, to be bloodied in battle by those they considered nothing more than primitive barbarians. Uriel had a good laugh over that one.

Many centuries after we had first been ordered to Earth, Anna called for us. We immediately left our posts and joined her at the stone circle, curious about her call. It was still several years away from our appointed meeting time, and she had never summoned us early before. As soon as I arrived, I could tell something important had happened. Anna was shining brighter than ever, infectious excitement dancing in her eyes. We all felt it, even though we didn't know the reason for it, and it thrummed through us all. I felt my hopes rise. Perhaps we were finally being recalled to Heaven. I could not wait to return and see the rest of my family again.

"I have exciting news," she said, a radiant smile upon her face. I was sure, now, that we were going home. "I have been visited by Gabriel, and he has informed me that our Father will soon walk the Earth."

Everybody began to talk at once. None of us had ever seen God before; not even the seraphs had seen him. I listened in stunned silence as my brothers and sisters began to speculate wildly about what he would look like, how he would arrive, what he would do when he got here. Anna waited patiently until the talking died down. Then she continued.

"It will not be our Father, as such," she clarified. "Soon, a vessel will be conceived, into which our Father can place a small portion of his divine self. The being, when it is born, will be known as the Son of God, and he though he will live life as a mortal man, he will be able to perform miracles, as we can."

"But... why?" Uriel asked, confusion painting his features.

"Gabriel said that Father wishes to experience life. Humanity. His Son will live, and he will die, and his soul will eventually return to Heaven, to be reunited with Father. Then, Father will know what it is to be human."

I, like the others, was excited by the news. But it was not what I had been expecting to hear. Not what I had been _hoping_ to hear. I stepped forward, towards Anna, and she looked at me expectantly.

"Does this mean we are to return home?" I asked.

"No. Our orders still stand. We are to stay and observe. And we are not to interfere with the Son of God, either. Gabriel will be putting everything into place, and he is worried that our presence may cause... complications... when God's Son is born."

"Don't the arch-angels trust us?" asked Hester.

"I'm sure they do, but we have our orders."

"Orders," Uriel grumbled. "I'm fed up of watching the humans. Their lives are tiny, and cyclical. Sons and daughters make the same mistakes as their fathers and mothers. Nothing ever changes. I think I'll go to Australia, and watch the kangaroos for a while. They, at least, are mildly entertaining." He disappeared with a flap of his wings.

"Are we still forbidden from taking vessels?" asked Balthazar. "There is so much I would like to experience whilst we're down here."

"Our orders stand as they are."

Balthazar rolled his eyes, and disappeared too. I hoped he wasn't going to do anything foolish. He was given to moments of immaturity, at times.

My brothers and sisters left, returning to the places they had been observing before the summons. I was left alone with Anna, and she seemed to sense my disappointment. She said nothing, waiting for me to speak first.

"Don't you want to go home?" I asked at last.

"Of course I do. But what I want does not matter. Our orders are more important than our own needs and desires."

"Do you truly believe that?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it," she said. And she knew that her words had not made me feel more at ease, for she lifted her hand to my face, brushing my cheek gently, as a human mother might do to comfort her child. "Poor Castiel. Why do you feel so lost? For as long as you have us, you will never be lost, never be alone. Home is more than the place where you were born, more than the place where you reside; it's where your friends and family are. The Earth is our home now. The sooner you come to accept that, the easier our mission will be for you."

She drifted away from me, and though part of me wanted to tell her to stay, I resisted. As much as I wanted her to comfort me with her words and her presence, I knew that I couldn't lean on her forever. She was our leader, and she had better things to do with her time than mother one homesick angel.

"I'll think about what you've said," I assured her.

"Please do." She smiled. "I hate to see you in pain."

I left the stone circle, travelled back to India, where I had been watching Buddhism flourish for the past few years. Something about that religion resonated with me. The humans had realised their own cyclical natures; they strove to live good and righteous lives. Really, they weren't all that different to angels. We, too, did our best, followed our orders, tried to please our superiors. Some small part of me envied the brevity of their lives. They would never know what it was like to linger in a place for centuries, thinking of little but home. And, not for the first time, I wondered if we would ever be allowed to return.

o - o - o - o - o

Nothing man makes endures. The bread baked today is moldy tomorrow. The cart built tomorrow is broken in ten years. The limestone statue sculpted next week is weathered in a century. From watching the humans, I learnt that the bigger you make something, the harder it falls down. The Son of God was born. He lived, and he died, and his death came far too early. His end was wrought by mankind, and for their treatment of our Father's Son, some of us never forgave them. To Uriel, it was just one more reason to hate. Hester heaped on her scorn, and even Anna was shocked by the death of Christ.

Other things fell, too. Jerusalem fell to the Roman Emperor Titus. Pompeii was levelled by the destructive force of Mount Vesuvius. The Parthian Empire fell into obscurity. Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. But destruction is a strange thing. Where fires ravage grown trees, new shoots are given room to grow. Where one empire falls, half a dozen more spring up. That crumbling statue is the perfect place for a thrush to build its nest. Death begets life. There is only one type of being in the entire universe which is exempt from this rule; mine.

It was something that became more and more obvious to me, the longer I remained on Earth. An angel is nothing but celestial energy. We are almost impossible to kill, immortal in the sense that we do not age and physically succumb to the passage of time, but if we die, we do not provide nourishment for new life. We simply cease to be. With each year that I spent watching life, the more detached I felt from it. The more certain I became that angels were never meant for this. Though we could, with permission, inhabit vessels, controlling humans by pulling the strings that made their bodies move, we couldn't fully appreciate the human experience. How could a rock, or a worm, or a fox, ever hope to comprehend even a tiny fragment of what it means to be human? Angels were even further removed from humanity than foxes, and worms, and rocks.

A man named Dickens wrote about poverty, and children, and inequality. And one winter's night, in London, I found myself wandering down a cobbled alley. It should have been dark, but the sky was filled with white-grey clouds, which seemed to light up from within. Snow had started to fall an hour ago, and lay on the ground at a depth of several inches. Labourers returned to their homes from the taverns, and I marvelled at the footprints they left behind. Such wonderful reminders that they existed, even if those reminders would be gone within a few hours. I remember wishing that I too could leave footprints. That just for a few brief minutes, I could touch the world, and prove that I truly did exist.

Then I saw her.

She could not have been more than nine years old, and she was curled up in the alcove of a doorway, her limbs pulled towards her torso—an instinct which might save her from frostbite and gangrene, if she lived through the night. A threadbare blanket was covering her thin body, and I could see how dirty her face was, all coal-stained and smudged, even beneath the layer of snow that was settling on her. My ears, far superior to those of any human or animal, could detect the slow, laboured efforts of her breathing. I could even hear her heartbeat growing slower and slower, and her aura—the natural energy of the body which surrounds every human being—was fading fast.

I heard an angel appear beside me, and turned my head. Anna was there, standing in the snow yet leaving no prints, watching the girl with a strange expression on her face. It looked almost like a mixture of pity and envy, though that was silly, of course. Angels did not feel such things, as humans did. I was probably imagining it.

"Hello, Anna," I said.

She glanced at me, and I was shocked by the change in her eyes. Where before they had been bright and serene, full of confidence and peacefulness, they were now dull empty pools which made me feel cold in ways the snow never could.

"Castiel," she replied. Then she turned her gaze back to the girl. "She won't live much longer."

"I know," I said. Hers wasn't the first death I had witnessed, not by a long shot, and she probably wouldn't be the last. Unlike Uriel, I didn't keep a tally of how many humans I'd watched die, but I did feel compelled to stop and witness these moments of ending whenever I came across them.

"It shouldn't be like this," Anna said. Her voice sounded strange to my ears, laden with emotions I could not understand. "She's just a child."

"People die," I said. "They have to die, because they would go mad if they lived forever."

My superior looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time, and she frowned. "But it isn't fair, that children like her are left out in the cold, with nobody to take care of them and protect them."

"Is this about her, or about us?" I asked. When she did not answer, I continued. "You once told me that we have a purpose here. That we are doing God's work, even if we don't know the reason behind it."

Her voice, when she spoke, was nothing more than a whisper, as gentle as the falling snowflakes which continued to kill the orphan girl. "Maybe I was wrong."

For a long time I said nothing. The snow continued to fall. The girl's breathing continued to slow, until at last it stopped. The child died, with only two invisible angels as witness to her passing. The soul, when it left the body, was a beautiful orb of white light, as pure as the snow on the ground. It began to rise up, and I watched as it ascended, climbing above the grimy grey buildings which were the body's tomb, until it disappeared from view. Then, I turned to Anna.

"Is something wrong?"

She looked at me, eyes still full of things I couldn't comprehend. "I'm tired, Castiel," she said. "I'm tired of being here, of walking and watching and not being able to touch or feel or affect the world in any way."

"I understand," I told her. Though I wasn't tired, I did have a desire to leave a mark of some kind. Something to show that I was me, that I was real, that I had been here.

"I'm beginning to think that our orders aren't truly orders at all," she continued. "Maybe they're just a test. Maybe the arch-angels just want to see how long we'll accept exile here before complaining or being driven mad."

I wish I could have done something to reassure or comfort her, but a millennia of wandering the Earth, of feeling more and more detached from humanity and life, had left me without the ability to relate to others, even other angels, as I once had. I know, now, that I should have offered her a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to lean on, even something as brief as a reassuring smile. But I was alone, an island on an island, wrapped in a numb yet protective cocoon. Without even realising it, I had shut myself down, mentally and emotionally. To do otherwise was to leave yourself vulnerable to everything Anna was experiencing—doubt, confusion, pity. So I offered her nothing; not even a few more moments of my company.

"I think I'll go and see what Uriel is up to," I said.

I left her. Part of me wonders how much would be different now if I hadn't done that. But I did it, and at the time, I didn't regret it, not even for an instant. For a millennia, I'd lived with Anna's words. _Our orders are more important than our own needs and desires._ And I'd _believed _them, because she'd asked me to. I wasn't willing to undo a thousand years' worth of belief. Not even for a friend.

o - o - o - o - o

Nineteen eighty-five turned out to be a very important year.

I remember it exactly; the moment when everything changed. I was standing on the banks of Vrelo Bosne, some short (by angel standards) distance south-west of Sarajevo. It was a beautiful summer day, the sun shining through the leaves of the trees, mottling the ground below with dancing shadows, and finches were singing to each other. I remember the finches most of all.

Until that moment, I had been alone, with only the songbirds and the babbling spring for company. When I heard another angel arrive, I didn't turn immediately; sometimes Balthazar liked to surprise me with visits, and Uriel often came and went, seeking me out when he tired of watching the sinners—something which happened frequently.

"Hello there, Castiel."

The voice was not familiar to me. Certainly, it belonged to none of my garrison. Turning, I found myself looking at the brightly glowing form of a seraph, his four faces studying me in turn, his two pairs of wings stretching out to either side of him. I bowed my head immediately.

"No need for that," the seraph said, and I detected a note of impatience in his voice. "I don't have time for fear or grovelling. We have things to discuss."

Thoughts whirled through my head. What could a seraph possibly have to discuss with _me_? Why wasn't he talking to Anna, instead? How had he found me? Why didn't he want me to pay him the respect he was rightfully due? I opened my mouth to ask, but my questions must not have been as silent as I had thought, for the seraph answered them in turn.

"Important business. Anna is yesterday's news. We've been watching you for some time. I don't need your deference, only your obedience. Now, should we move this along, or do you want to continue playing twenty questions?"

"I am ready to hear what you have to say," I told him, turning away from the bubbling spring to face him squarely. His answers raised yet more questions, but I realised I would have to be patient. Father knew, patience was familiar to me by now. Patience was practically one of the garrison.

He smiled, but it was a cold, empty gesture. "Good. My name is Zachariah. I'm the one your commander has been reporting to for the past few dozen centuries. As I said, we've been watching you for some time. Don't let it go to your head, though; we've been watching all of the garrison. Call it 'performance review' if you like. And we've been so impressed with your work that we've decided to honour you with a promotion. Congratulations, Castiel, you're the new garrison leader."

Zachariah smiled again and held out his hand. I merely looked at it, trying to grasp what was happening. It almost felt as if the Earth had opened me up and swallowed me. Once more, thoughts buzzed in my mind like bees in a hive. I spat one of them out before I could lose my focus.

"But what about Anna?"

"Hmm, yes, Anna," he replied. A subtle shift in the energy of his celestial body told me he was not pleased, but hiding it well. "I'm afraid there have been... complications with your former commander."

"What kind of complications?"

"Anna is a traitor," he said, with all the bluntness of a hammer pounding down upon an anvil. "She's given up everything that we, and God, have given her. Tore out her grace and fell. Biggest fall we've had since Lucifer, and that was a nasty piece of business."

"Yes, I remember," I mumbled. But my mind was not on Lucifer. It was on Anna. Part of me couldn't believe what Zachariah was saying. Anna was strong, and confident, and beautiful, and vibrant... she was the epitome of angelic perfection. How could she fall? How could she betray her brothers and sisters? How could she abandon us? But another part of me recalled our meeting in London during the previous century. And at every gathering, within the standing circle of Stonehenge, she had been quieter, duller, almost smaller in some way. I'd merely thought she was having a minor crisis of faith, the likes of which we were all given to at times. But for her to have gone further, for her to have given up everything that she was and turned her back on her family... she must have been desperate.

"Anyway," Zachariah continued, either oblivious to my inner turmoil or merely ignoring it, "we've lost track of Anna herself, but we've recovered her grace. It's being kept safe. If you ever find her, you are to kill her. We need to send a message to others, both in Heaven and on Earth, who might think about rebelling. Do you understand?"

_No _I wanted to say. _I don't understand. For two thousand years I've walked the surface of this world, and I understand less now than when I started. _But I didn't say that, because I could tell it wasn't expected of me. Zachariah cared nothing for my understanding; he simply wanted my obedience.

"I understand," I said. "But there is something I would like to know. Why me?"

"Because the others trust you and will follow you," Zachariah said. "Because you are a good soldier, Castiel. You do not ask questions. You know how to carry out your orders. And we trust you to do that."

"For how long will we be kept on Earth?" Now that I was garrison commander, I felt I had the right, and the authority, to ask the question.

Zachariah tutted and shook his head. "For as long as it is deemed necessary." Then he gave me another empty smile. "I'll see you in ten years."

He left, and I felt more alone than ever. Not because of the seraph's departure, but because for the first time since my creation, I had nobody above me to look up to and seek guidance from. There was no angel to stand over me and shelter me beneath their wings, to reassure me that I was doing the right thing, that my course of action was the correct one. Now, that task fell to me. I was the one who would reassure the others, who would issue the orders and report to the seraphs.

Part of me hated Anna for leaving, for abandoning me to this fate, for her selfish act of indulgence and desperation. I _wanted _to punish her, because she deserved nothing less for betraying her family. For betraying me. But I also knew that, long ago, I might have done the same thing too, if she hadn't been there for me. It was a favour I hadn't repaid, and now I never would.

As I turned away from the pleasant spring, I felt a weight upon my shoulders that hadn't been there before. My brothers and sisters were now relying on me to lead them. I was the one they would turn to for orders and advice. I recalled, then, something Anna had told me many centuries ago. _For as long as you have us, you will never be lost, never be alone._ And at that moment, I knew that there was an exception to her words; they didn't apply to those who commanded. Leaders were alone out of necessity; it was just the way it had to be.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks for reading. Hope you liked this short piece. If you're wondering what's up next week, it's going to be a story about knights and castles and social inequality (peppered with small amounts of gratuitous violence). Give the story a chance, even if you don't know the setting; I promise to ease you into it. *pats trusty tub of vaseline*_

_If you're here for Supernatural, come back in a few weeks or hit the 'follow author' button. After the medieval story I'll be heading back to the Marvel-verse for a several-chapters Deadpool sequel to my X-Men fic, and then after that I'll be back with a longer Supernatural story. Promises!_

_Thanks for stopping by_


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